Archive for the ‘Offbeat’ Category

Best sellers at the online pharmacy

Offbeat, Society, Swedish Life: November 9th, 2006 by PO

Since going online, pharmaceutical retailer Apoteket has done a roaring trade in goods of an intimate nature.

The contemplation of baldness and babies is sufficient to make many a Swede reach for the keyboard.

Here is the list of Apoteket?s top ten bestselling online products:

1. Alvedon (painkillers)
2. Shaped condoms, with lubricant
3. Clearblue pregnancy test
4. Ipren (painkillers)
5. Another shaped condom with lubricant
6. Rogaine Forte (stimulates hair growth)
7. Klick lubricant, water-based
8. Cho-San condom with lubricant
9. Clearblue Digital ovulation test
10. Betolvidon (vitamin)

Sweden: Heaven and Hell

Miscellaneous, Offbeat: November 7th, 2006 by JS

Ever wondered how Sweden earned its reputation as a hotbed of sin? Well, let Italian soft porn director Luigi Scattini enlighten you – his sixties film ‘Sweden: Heaven and Hell’ is doing a roaring trade on YouTube.

Sweden was, for Scattini, the country where “topless bands beat out the rhythm of a turned-on generation.”

A country where “meter maids wear uniforms by day and nothing by night”.

A country where “erotic books are displayed for both sexes with government approval.”

Watch at your own risk (it’s very soft core, but rather lacking in taste and political correctness).

Incidentally, the song Mah Nà Mah Nà was originally recorded for this movie. See the Muppets’ version here.

The final windfall

Offbeat: November 4th, 2006 by PO

Ever wonder what happened to Europe, the Swedish band that brought us The Final Countdown?

Well, they?re back on tour. And they?ve got a blog (Swedish). And a few nights ago they were out stealing apples from Roxette singer Per Gessle?s garden.

When the bus rolled into Halmstad the other night we decide to pinch apples from Per Gessle. So we asked a man in check clothes where the king of pop lived, followed his directions and soon found ourselves in Per?s lovely garden.

While we were helping ourselves to his fruit we saw a women standing in a window and gesticulating wildly. Maybe it was Åsa Gessle. We assumed she was trying to say, ?Help yourselves to the apples boys, and best of luck with everything.?

When we later checked in to the hotel we gave the apples to the nice receptionist, who thanked us by giving each of us an almond bun.

Could this be the spark that reignites ancient rock/pop rivalries?

Will Per Gessle respond by kicking his football into Joey Tempest’s greenhouse?

Watch this space.

Norbergs can’t keep up with the Joneses

Offbeat: November 4th, 2006 by PR

Pity the Norbergs of Sweden. Two years ago, 583 of them gathered their way into the Guinness Book of Records when they met – where else? – in the Västmanland town of Norberg. It was the largest-ever gathering of people with the same name.

But records, and especially utterly pointless ones, are made to be broken and to the chagrin of Norbergs everywhere, the inevitable has happened.

Damn those 1,000 Welsh Joneses.

Why you’ll never win a Nobel Prize

Media, Offbeat: November 3rd, 2006 by PR

A lifelong dream to win a Nobel Prize is dashed. Apparently, I can’t. Nor can you. Not because we aren’t good enough at churning out literature or ground-breaking enough in science or peaceful enough, but because one does not win a Nobel Prize.

Not according to the latest entry in Catharina Grünbaum’s entertaining language column (Swedish) in Dagens Nyheter, anyway. In Swedish, and presumably in English too, one is awarded (tilldelas) the prize, or one simply gets it. The reasoning is that Nobel is not a competition. The Oscars, on the other hand, are competitive.

So you could win an Oscar but you’ll never win a Nobel Prize.

“They’re crapping on the road”

National, Offbeat, Swedish Life: November 3rd, 2006 by JS

As a symbol of Stockholm’s complete inability to deal with the year’s first snowfall, this must take some beating: Aftonbladet reported that people stuck in traffic for up to five hours on the Essingeleden bypass road were reduced to crapping by the roadside.

They must be loving this in Norrland.